Sensors for measuring the strain of an object are ubiquitous in the field of engineering. One type of known sensor is a capacitive strain sensor consisting of a non-conducting, compliant dielectric layer sandwiched between two compliant conducting layers (also referred to herein as “compliant electrodes”). This arrangement forms a capacitor whose capacitance depends in part on the distance between the conductive layers and the change in surface area of the compliant conducting layers. The strain and/or compression of the dielectric layer changes the capacitance of the sensor, which can be detected by a sensing system. When a beam element is bent, a tensile strain is induced on the outside of the curved beam element and a compressive strain is induced on the inside of the curved beam element. If one or more compliant capacitive strain sensors are embedded within the beam element such that they are displaced from the center axis of the beam element, the strain induced by bending results in a change in capacitance that can be detected along the length of the beam element. This change in capacitance is proportional to the curvature of the bent beam element. In turn, this curvature is proportional to the angular displacement between two vectors defined by the ends of the beam element.